Month: October 2010

The Sunday Age today has a report on the growth in Halloween popularity.

More than 4 million people – or 20 per cent of the population – will celebrate Halloween this year according to a survey by McCrindle Research.

I have certainly seen the interest in Halloween grow in my own stores.  This year is the best ever. Excellent sales thanks to new traffic and good business from existing customers.

What makes Halloween especially rewarding is the 50% (and more) margin.

In 2006, newsXpress was the first newsagency marketing group to embrace Halloween.  Today, the group is one of the largest retailers of Halloween product around the country.

We are enjoying good success with these Forever Friends impulse items from Hallmark.  The Christmas ornaments have been out for less than a week and we have less than half left.  We sold two Christmas CDs within a couple of days and feel good about their sales prospects too.  Both items are only located at the counter so their success is truly due to impulse decisions.

Further to my post of Sept. 20 about the opportunity for newsagents near a Kenny’s Cardiology store, Allied Brands, the owner of Kenn’y corporate stores and the brand, accounced the appointment of Voluntary Administrators today.

If you own a newsagency near a Kenny’s store, do some research on the opportunity.  While administration will see the businesses continue to operate for now, smart newsagents will act on the opportunity.  Company stores are expected to close.

Ink continues to the star category of stationery for us, generating excellent new traffic and driving wonderful year on year growth.

We are into double digit growth on last year – even in our temporary downsized store of 97 sq m compared to our original 330 sq m.  As a comparison, stationery has shown only limited growth for the year.

Ink accounts for 50% of our year to date stationery sales.

With all the talk of  newsagents needing help and struggling to find their place in today’s retail landscape, I thought it might be valuable to summarize how we have approached ink for the last four or five years.

• We only carry brand name ink.  We did try compatibles some years ago and while the margin was good, the return rate was higher.
• We promote ink outside the store five times a year through catalogues.  This brings in excellent new traffic, plenty of it sticky – new customers who come back having had a good price and service experience.
• We also promote ink in-store with flyers handed to customers, attractive shelf talkers and posters promoting hero items.
• We back the category with great customer service – special orders and other services which help our customers have an enjoyable experience.
• We promote our ink offer online on a range of listing websites.

Ink customers are valuable, not only because of the repeat business they generate but also because the boy other items regularly – magazines, stationery and even greeting cards.

Ink fits with an important aspect of newsagency shopping, habit. As a channel we are great at habit based shopping.  This is why many newsagents are doing well with ink.  It is a natural fit.

While the last five years have been good for us, I expect the future to be even better. There are excellent growth opportunities for ink ahead thanks to new marketing initiatives.